The Extended Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins

A commemorative anniversary edition of this landmark work which powerfully encapsulates a new way of looking at living things and their evolution - a gene's eye view

Originally published in 1976, The Selfish Gene remains a classic work in the development of evolutionary thought, and its influence is undiminished today

Includes the original prefaces including Robert Trivers' 1976 foreword, and extracts from a selection of early reviews

New to this Edition:

A new epilogue by Richard Dawkins, discussing the continuing relevance of these ideas in evolutionary biology today

Completely re-typeset, to make the book even more attractive to read

Includes two key chapters from The Extended Phenotype, which were written in response to the heated debate generated by The Selfish Gene

The Extended Selfish Gene

Fourth Edition

Richard Dawkins

Description

The Selfish Gene is a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. In it Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for the replication of genes. The book provoked widespread and heated debate, which in part led Dawkins to write The Extended Phenotype, in which he gave a deeper clarification of the central concept of the gene as the unit of selection, as well as contributing his own development of this insight.

For the first time, The Extended Selfish Gene brings these two books together, by including two key chapters from The Extended Phenotype. These chapters provide Dawkins's detailed and powerful response to two issues raised by critics of The Selfish Gene: the accusations of genetic determinism (the idea that our behaviour is entirely determined by our genes), and of "adaptationism" (that all traits are indiscriminately perceived to be adaptations resulting from natural selection). While written in particular for the biology community, Dawkins's clarity of expression allows these chapters to be accessible to all who are seriously engaged with the gene's eye view and its implications.

The imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant Selfish Gene not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research. Forty years later, its insights remain as significant as on the day it was published. Along with the two extra chapters, The Extended Selfish Gene includes a new epilogue to The Selfish Gene from the author which highlights the relevance of the gene's eye view to evolutionary biology today.

The Extended Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins

Table of Contents

1: Why are people?2: The replicators3: Immortal coils4: The gene machine5: Aggression: stability and the selfish machine6: Genesmanship7: Family planning8: Battle of the generations9: Battle of the sexes10: You scratch my back, I'll ride on yours11: Memes: the new replicators12: Nice guys finish first13: The long reach of the gene

Epilogue to 40th Anniversary Edition

EndnotesReviews from earlier editionsUpdated bibliographyIndex and key to bibliographyExtracts from reviews

The Extended Selfish Gene

Fourth Edition

Richard Dawkins

Author Information

Professor Richard Dawkins, Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford, is one of the most influential science writers and communicators of our generation. He was the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position he held from 1995 until 2008, and is Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford. His bestselling books include The Selfish Gene (1976), The Extended Phenotype (1982) and its sequel The Blind Watchmaker (1986), River Out of Eden (1995), Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), A Devil's Chaplain (2004), The Ancestor's Tale (2004), and The God Delusion (2007). He has won many literary and scientific awards, including the 1987 Royal Society of Literature Award, the 1990 Michael Faraday Award of the Royal Society, the 1994 Nakayama Prize for Human Science, the 1997 International Cosmos Prize, and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest in 2009.

The Extended Selfish Gene

Fourth Edition

Richard Dawkins

Reviews and Awards

Reviews from 30th Anniversary Edition:

"Dawkins first book, The Selfish Gene, was a smash hit...Best of all, Dawkins laid out this biology-some of it truly subtle-in stunningly lucid prose. (It is, in my view, the best work of popular science ever written.)" --New York Review of Books

"This important book could hardly be more exciting." --The Economist

"The sort of popular science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius." --New York Times

"Who should read this book? Everyone interested in the universe and their place in it." --Jeffrey R. Baylis, Animal Behaviour

"This book should be read, can be read, by almost everyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution." --W. D. Hamilton, Science

"The presentations are remarkable for their clarity and simplicity, intelligible to any schoolchild, yet so little condescending as to be a pleasure to the professional." --American Scientist